Organized Chaos

It seems Ben has inherited some of my genes. He was quite proud of his arrangement of mini-tacos...

Despite the apparent organization, these guys are actually crazies....  Ask them to smile for the camera, and you get a variety of interesting looks.

 

Is There A Baby Gate Around Your Christmas Tree?

What the child sees:
A barricade
A hindrance to the acquisition of good things
A beautiful vision- just out of reach

What the parent sees:
A door that will be opened when the time is right
A help during a time when self-control may be lacking
A beautiful vision, protected until the day it can be experienced in full

Has God put a baby gate around your Christmas tree?

Blog? What blog?

Hey... ummmm... yeah....

I DO actually think about my blog. However, it's usually at a very inconvenient time. Like when I'm brushing my teeth at 11:00pm, getting ready for bed. I'm going to catch you all up to what we're doing with a few pictures from the past ummm *several* months.

First, some pictures from when we went to visit my parents for the "July Birthdays Party." For those of you who were following Colin's fight with the flu- he's the little boy with the blond hair. There is also a picture of me, Caleb, Laura, and my cousins Denise and Heather (with her son, Walt.





Here are some pictures of Anna. She and Ashleigh can both turn their tongue sideways.




Emily has been pretty crazy recently...






The boys are around here too...




And here are a few pictures of everyone having a good time together. We spent Halloween with our friend, Molly Hines (the bumble bee).

Cat's in the Cradle and a silver spoon...

I'm going to skip on by the fact that we've spent the last three weeks in and out of the hospital with Caleb and Anna. They both seem to be on the mend. We're all still sleeping kind of poorly at night, and I haven't recovered the sleep lost to the midnight ER runs. However, we've also had fun stuff going on over here between all the yuck.

1. Emily moved into a big girl bed.
2. Emily got her first haircut ever (at Doolittle's).
3. Anna turned 4 July the 8th. Ben turned 5 July 18th. Caleb turned 1 July 30th.

Home Improvements

In anticipation for the coming school year, we have done some more organizing of toys and books. Since cousin Aiden will now be staying with us during the day, we are having a sort of preschool experience right here at home. The laundry room desk area is ready for Ben's kindergarten work, craft supplies are sorted, and toys and puzzles are all in their proper places. The children even have nifty circles of colored carpet to sit on during story time. And, as an improvement for Mommy and Daddy, we bought a new kitchen table and highchair. IKEA is to thank for these purchases (and probably the organizing revolution that is going through our house).

Kindergarten

Well folks, it's been a long journey, but I have come 180 degrees from saying, "I did just fine in public school," to "I think I'm going to homeschool." That's right. Home. School. School at home. I just officially took Ben's name off the TK waiting list at Carmel Baptist Wee School this morning. My dear son will not be doing TK next year. He will be doing Kindergarten at home with me. I don't think I have time to go into WHY we are homeschooling. The list of reasons is very long. I just think it will be a good fit for our family. I know my children. I love my children. I can work with them to bring out their God given potential in a way that a teacher of 30 students can not. Besides, we can be done with book work by lunch and have the rest of the day to do other stuff. Think about getting the 1:00pm piano lesson time slot. All the other kids are still in school. You can go on a field trip to the zoo in the middle of the week. You can do real life stuff like cooking and gardening. And best of all, we can have a routine without being a slave to the bell. Some of my worst interactions with my children are when I am trying to get them out of bed, dressed, and fed before the school bell rings. With homeschool, if they take a couple minutes to decide between cereal and eggs, no big deal. Same thing goes for night time activities. We'd love to fully participate in children's programming on Wednesday nights at church, but it ends way after they need to be in bed to get a decent amount of sleep for school. This being said, Anna will probably still be at Porter Ridge in the EC program. If she qualifies for next year, we may as well take advantage of these services. But for Ben, we're going to start Kindergarten, and the rest of the children will be doing preschool material. If any of you are familiar with the world of homeschool, we are using Saxon Math K, Phono-Graphix reading, and Five In A Row unit studies. Plus, I printed out the NC State requirements for Kindergarten to make sure we cover all our bases. I am looking forward to it. This should be an adventure.

Cousin Aiden Comes To Visit

Wanda is watching Aiden while Monique and Samuel go on their honeymoon. Since the children love having him around so much, we ended up having him just sleep over here tonight. This video will show you why Ben wants more children at our house. The more the merrier, apparently.